Where Black Female Founders Can Find Funding, Resources, and More
The number of Black Female Founders in the U.S. is growing, but they remain underinvested by VCs and angels
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Arlan Hamilton — founder and managing partner at Backstage Capital — summarized best why investing in Black Female Founders (BFF) isn’t just important, but could produce high yields:
“Less than 0.2 percent of all early-stage venture funding goes to Black women, while we make up approximately 8 percent of the U.S. population and are one of the fastest-growing entrepreneur segments in the country,” Arlan wrote. “It is my firm belief that because Black women have had to make do with far less for centuries, equipping them with early-stage capital that is on par with their white male counterparts has the potential to lead to outsized returns.”
To help bridge this gap in funding, I’ve put together this reference guide for Black Female Founders to provide context, references, and links to resources on the following topics:
- BFF activity
- BFF VCs
- BFF angel groups
- BFF startups to watch
- BFF incubators and accelerators
- BFF co-working spaces
- BFF communities
- BFF tech media and podcasts
- BFF events and conferences
1. BFF activity
According to ProjectDiane (a biennial study of Black Women Founders in the U.S.), the number of BFF startups has more than doubled since 2016 and the amount of venture or angel funding raised by BFFs has increased 500%, from about $50 million in 2016 to nearly $250 million in 2017. But the amount of venture or angel funding received by Black women-led startups since 2009 is still just .0006% of the $424.7 billion in total tech venture funding raised in the same period.
Fifty percent of all BFFs are located either in New York City or California. Ninety-five percent of BFFs have bachelor degrees and nearly 50% have masters or PhDs (and Howard University — not Harvard — has produced more BFFs.) Unfortunately, very few BFFs are currently participating in top accelerators…
